Updated specific locations to be searchable, take a look at Las Vegas as an example.

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

13,097
Why is my teenage son no longer speaking with me after I purposely mentor the bully who has tormented him for years?
Post Body

I AM NOT OP

Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/Su1Q6GyoJa

AITAH for telling my mom she is dead to me if she mentors my bully?

So my[16m] mom[40s] is a teacher at my school. Our school has a special elective you can take which is being a teacher's aide during your elective period. It's mostly stuff like grading papers for them, making copies, mentoring, etc... It's pretty much always just the teacher's favorite student at the time. I found out at the beginning of the semester that my mom chose "Dave"[17m] to be her TA.

Dave has made my life a living nightmare since middle school. He has bullied me mercilessly both physically and emotionally since 6th grade. I don't want to get into everything he's done to me, but everyone is fully aware of it, including the school and my parents. There have been countless meetings with school administration and suspensions on his end but it never stopped him. Since we've been in high school I haven't had to see him as much, which is a relief, but the times that I do are always terrible.

When I found out that he was her new TA, I was obviously very hurt and confused. I asked her why would she want to spend extra time with someone who made my life so terrible? She said that she had him in one of her classes and that he really isn't such a bad kid, but he has a really terrible home life that she can't tell me about that makes him act out. For the record, my mom has always had a soft spot for kids who come from bad homes. I reminded her of all the things he had done to me and she said that she understands but he really needs help right now. I told her I get that, but why does it have to be you? We have a huge school full of teachers and staff who can mentor him. Why does it have to be you? She told me to stop being selfish and some kids have it harder than I can imagine and she's just trying to help.

I was honest with her and told her that if she continued to have him as her aide, she was dead to me. She was choosing him over me and she would not longer be my mother. I would no longer talk to her and the minute I turned 18, I was moving out and she would never hear from me again. She rolled her eyes and said I was being dramatic but after a couple of days of ignoring her, I was grounded. It didn't change my mind and my dad then tried to force me to talk to her. I still refused so they pretty much took everything away from me one by one for the past few weeks. I no longer have my car, computer, guitar, and most recently my art supplies and I have to come home from school and go straight to my room and am not allowed out except dinner until I start talking to her again. They don't realize that this is just strengthening my resolve. I'm going to sit in this empty room every day silently until I'm 18 and they'll never see me again.

My mom keeps coming in crying and begging me to talk to her which makes me feel kind of bad but she still won't remove Dave as her aide. Am I taking this too far? I just feel so betrayed.

Edit: link is fixed. I am also not OP.

Comments
[not loaded or deleted]

The issue isn't that Dave being a TA results in more bullying for OOP.

The issue is the feeling of betrayal of the mother.

I mean it's outlined and repeated several times throughout the post.

Trying to spin it as "well it didn't affect OOP until he knew about it" is completely ridiculous, as well as obvious. Of course it didn't bother OOP then, OOP didn't know about it lol

[not loaded or deleted]

"He wasn't mad about it before he found out about it!"

No shit lol

[not loaded or deleted]

No not really. Your arguments are very easy to follow.

[not loaded or deleted]

I don't have an issue with your opinion on that portion.

You argued earlier that because he didn't care before he knew about it, he shouldn't care now.

That's what I was disagreeing with. You keep tacking on the rest of your opinion and defending that part of it when I'm only taking issue with this particular thing.

[not loaded or deleted]

No it isn't.

You argued earlier that because he didn't care before he knew about it, he shouldn't care now.

Now you are saying he shouldn't care about it because it's his mother's job and he should be able to compartmentalize and cope.

Entirely different point.

[not loaded or deleted]

Well that's a different point entirely.

I agree with parts of what you say here, but you can't sympathize with oop at all?

[not loaded or deleted]

but it seems like Dave was the TA for a while before OP found out which means the situation had no effect on him at all.

The difference is I'm not being reductive. I'm literally repeating what you said.

[not loaded or deleted]

You guys are placing way too much malice on the bully.

9/10 I'd wager this person is just a dickhead who's own insecurities manifest when around OOP, and he lashes out.

He's not Mr Glass from Unbreakable playing the long game. Bad kids tend to cling on certain adults that provide positive reinforcement, the connection to OOP is probably incidental.

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
5 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
56,250
Link Karma
21,172
Comment Karma
32,876
Profile updated: 1 day ago

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
6 months ago